June Squibb is kind of having a moment right now. As I write this article in June 2024, she is currently starring in two big movies. One that is her first lead role (Thelma) and one that is currently the biggest commercial hit of 2024 (Inside Out 2). You wouldn’t be the first person to admit that you’ve never heard of June Squibb until the 2010s but she has been acting ever since the 1950s and is only now getting the recognition she deserves.

Born in Vandalia, Illinois in 1929 the daughter of a silent film pianist, June Squibb’s acting career first began when she moved to Cleveland in 1951 and joined the Cleveland Play House where she sang, danced and performed in a variety of plays. By the late fifties, she moved to New York City to pursue a career on Broadway, although at first she had to settle for off-Broadway roles in such plays as Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend and Charles Gaynor’s off-Broadway revival of the Broadway play Lend an Ear before she made her Broadway debut in Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim’s 1959 musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable, which was loosely based on the memoir of the famous burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. About a decade later, Squibb appeared in the Tony-nominated 1968 Broadway version of The Happy Time, but she only performed in a few shows during the 1970s.

The first time June Squibb had performed on screen was in 1985 when she starred in one episode of the anthology series CBS Schoolbreak Special (the Tiffany Network’s answer to ABC Afterschool Special). Squibb would soon make regular appearances on television, beginning in the 1990s with guest roles on Law & Order and continuing with shows like Judging Amy, ER, House, The Bernie Mac Show, Two and a Half Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Ghost Whisperer, 7th Heaven, Girls, Glee, The Big Bang Theory, Shameless, Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy, as well as the soap operas All My Children and The Young and the Restless.

Of course, June Squibb also played many supporting roles in films as well, beginning in 1990 with Woody Allen’s Alice and followed in that decade by small roles in big films like Scent of a Woman (1992) starring Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993), Frank Oz comedy In & Out (1997) starring Kevin Kline and the fantasy drama Meet Joe Black (1998) starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins.

After that Squibb played Jack Nicholson’s wife in Alexander Payne’s acclaimed hit About Schmidt (2002) and starred in the Todd Haynes romance Far from Heaven alongside Julianne Moore as well as various comedies, dramas and independent films from 2004 to 2012 that received little attention. But her breakout role (at the age of 84!) finally came in 2013 with the debut of Alexander Payne’s slice-of-life road film Nebraska, starring Bruce Dern as a man who tries to travel to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect a million dollar sweepstakes prize and co-starring Squibb as his wife and Will Forte and Bob Odenkirk as their sons. That film won the praise of critics as well as the Palme d’Or at Cannes and an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. And for many people who watched that movie, it was also the introduction of June Squibb and the first time people realized how brilliant an actor she is, with film critics like Christy Lemire giving her the highest compliment when they lauded her as a scene stealer. For her role as Kate Grant in Nebraska, Squibb was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and received nominations from the Golden Globes, SAG Awards and Independent Spirit Awards as well.

Bigger roles and poster billings followed, including Brett Haley’s well-received Sundance debut I’ll See You in My Dreams (2015) starring Blythe Danner, the negatively reviewed but commercially successful Christmas comedy Love the Coopers (2015), Chris Kelly’s smart and funny indie comedy Other People (2016), Becca Gleason’s lukewarmly received indie comedy Summer ’03 (2018), the very original and critically praised Blow the Man Down (2019), Andy Samberg sci-fi rom-com Palm Springs (2020), the Disney comedy Godmothered (2020), the Apple drama Palmer (2021), the A24 psychological drama The Humans (2021) and the animated films Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Toy Story 4 (2019), Soul (2020) and Inside Out 2 (2024).

But June Squibb’s biggest film role to date came when she played the lead in Josh Margolin’s highly entertaining comedy Thelma (2024), in which she stars as a grandmother who gets bamboozled by an internet scam artist who pretends to be her grandson and is coerced into giving them $10,000. What follows is a plot to hunt down the scam artist and get her money back. The film co-stars Richard Roundtree, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Fred Hechinger and Malcolm McDowell and it is full of laughs and pays homage to the Mission: Impossible series in clever ways with the way Squibb’s character goes about her “mission” (this one is already looking to be one of my favorite films of the year).

Thelma premiered at Sundance earlier this year and it exceeded the expectations of many people who watched it. June Squibb proves that even at her age she knows how to anchor a film and give a radiant performance. I didn’t even know who June Squibb was before Nebraska came out but she’s one of my favorite actors now.